Team Spirit destroyed Gaiming Gladiators 3-0 in the grand final of TI12 to secure a second Aegis for the organization.
Last year, Team Spirit finished 13th-16th at TI11. It seemed like their TI10 magic had died out. But with just one roster change and peaking at the right time in the season, Team Spirit have managed to claim The International 2023 (TI12) with a 3-0 win over Gaimin Gladiators in the grand final. Team Spirit dropped only two games in the entire tournament and became just the second organization after OG to win TI twice.
Team Spirt came into the grand final through the upper bracket, not being tested a lot. Gaimin Gladiators came all the way through the lower bracket, having played three series and five games more than their adversaries. But GG did it in style, running over teams with their fast paced lineups. The big question going into the grand final was how were the TI10 champions planning on halting this fast paced playstyle of the three time DPC Major winners? Of course, Team Spirit had something going for them right before the grand final began - Illya “Yatoro” Mulyarchuk shaved his head to give them the bald buff!
vs
Gaimin GladiatorsGame 1 (33:27)
Team Spirit came out with all guns blazing in game 1 to give Gaimin Gladiators a taste of their own medicine. This is a meta in which games go long, but GG were the team ending games early with heroes like Chaos Knight and Weaver. Team Spirit banned the CK, picked the Weaver and Yatoro absolutely ran rampant on the hero. It felt like for the first time in the playoffs that Gaimin Gladiators were trailing by a significant amount of net worth at the 10 minute mark.
Game 2 (42:59)
Game 2 was much more even for the first 30 minutes, but Gaimin Gladiators let Magnus through. There are some iconic player-hero combinations in Dota 2, and one of the most iconic is Magomed “Collapse” Khalilov and Magnus! To put the cherry on top of the cake, Yatoro got his hands on a Faceless Void. Not only is he amazing on the Faceless Void, but with Empower, the hero gets absolutely out of control with his farm. Things started to tilt in favour of Team Spirit after the half hour mark thanks to some amazing vision to go along with the big team fight ultimates. Yatoro ended the game with a Rampage to give Team Spirit a 2-0 lead in the grand final. Before this series, it was only Quinn “Quinn” Callahan who had been able to make Pangolier work on the main stage. But in this game, Denis “Larl” Sigitov had an exceptional game on the hero, and that too against a major counter in the form of the Primal Beast.
Game 3 (42:05)
The mark of champions in Dota 2 is the ability to adapt and surprise opponents when they least expect it. Team Spirit hadn’t played the Dazzle throughout the tournament, and when the Shadow Priest made it through the first two ban phases, they picked the hero up for Larl. This was into an Ancient Apparition, which was GG’s first AA pick of the tournament. And the understanding of timings was so immaculate – most teams would look to play fast if you have a Chaos Knight against a Spectre. But Team Spirit got two Hands of Midas, and two Silver Edges and once they hit their timings, absolutely destroyed Gaimin Gladiators! At around the 26th minute mark, the win probability for Team Spirit was only 4% (granted the algorithm works a bit in favour of Spectre), but looking at them play and turn the tides, you would never have imagined it was that skewed. At 30 minutes, the kill score was 31-18 in favor of Gaimin Gladiators. At the end of the game 12 minutes later, the kill score was 36-32 in favour of Team Spirit. They turned it around so quickly, GG didn’t know what hit them.
It has been an amazing season for Gaimin Gladiators, winning five premier tournaments and securing second place at TI12. They should be really proud of what they have achieved, and will definitely be one of the teams to look out for next season.
It has been a beautiful journey for Team Spirit. After a rough start to the season, they won the Riyadh Masters, DreamLeague Season 21, and now The International 2023. And the beautiful thing was, they wanted to do it most for Larl, who hadn’t experienced holding the Aegis with them at TI10 in 2021. It is a beautiful story, and all Dota 2 fans have been treated to some beautiful Dota 2 by this magical team in the last three weeks. They deserve every bit of their success.
